For the first time ever, the European Parliament (EP) has exercised full legislative powers for the adoption of the new regulations on cohesion policy 2014-2020. It is therefore important to analyse whether the Parliament's players succeeded to use their new legislative powers. Beyond the institutional point of view, it needs to be examined which influences the EP had on the policy with regards to content. Although it became obvious that the EP is not yet on equal footing with the Member States, represented by the European Council and its rotating presidency, the involvement of the EP led to substantial changes on the proposed regulations in the course of the inter-institutional negotiations executed in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure. Furthermore, the positions successfully defended by the EP can be associated with options in favour of reducing regional disparities and of economic, social and territorial cohesion, whereas the Council's positions might rather be linked to competitiveness orientation. In order to enable the EP to better fulfil its role as co-legislator, the framework conditions require further catch up, e.g. in terms of human resources and technical capacities.